Why Lower Courts Agree on AR-15 Bans and Why it May Not Matter (Ft. Andrew Willinger)
About this episode
The episode discusses the consensus among lower courts regarding AR-15 bans and features insights from law professor Andrew Willinger.
This week, we're looking at how the lower courts have handled AR-15 ban challenges in light of the Supreme Court's latest Second Amendment case. To explain the consensus that's developed across the appellate courts and provide a different perspective, we have Georgia State University Law Professor Andrew Willinger on the show. Willinger is the former executive director of the Duke University Firearms Law Center, and he teaches a class on the Second Amendment. He's also been critical of the Court's Second Amendment standard and its application at times. He noted that every appellate court to decide an "assault weapons" or "high-capacity" magazine case has upheld restrictions on the devices. He said they've largely coalesced around similar reasoning. While the Supreme Court has gone out of its way to emphasize that step one of the Bruen test is meant to be a pretty simple filter, Willinger said most lower courts have actually upheld AR bans at step two. Willinger said they've identified things like 19th-century Bowie knife bans as the core historical analogue for modern AR bans. He said courts have padded those laws with much earlier and much later weapons restrictions, such as the…
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